Princeton's hot start fades fast in loss to Dunsmuir

PRINCETON — Things started great for the Princeton High football team in the Eagles' season opener Friday afternoon.

Gavino Mitchum scored two rushing touchdowns on their first two possessions, sandwiched around Luis Angel's onside recovery of Julian Rosas' pooch kickoff.

That's when defending Northern Section Division VI champion Dunsmuir woke up and put on a clinic in eight-man football, scoring 48 unanswered points on the way to a 48-12 nonleague road win for the Tigers.

Tigers quarterback Brian Taylor ran for 104 yards and a 70-yard touchdown on 11 carries, returned a punt 70 yards for another score to give Dunsmuir an 18-12 lead early in the second quarter, and threw a 48-yard TD pass to C.J. Palmer with under a minute to play in the first half.

Shawn Adams intercepted two passes for the Tigers on defense, and returned the first one 53 yards for a touchdown 13 seconds before halftime to make the score 32-12.

Taylor, who finished 2 for 5 for 73 yards passing, said the Tigers showed their big-play capabilities.

"It was good," he said. "We were a little slow at first, but once we got going, they couldn't stop us. We were just in the zone."

Mitchum capped a six-play drive with a 30-yard TD run on Princeton's opening series of the game. He finished with 100 yards rushing on 15 carries.

After Angel got the Eagles the ball right back with his recovery at the Dunsmuir 36-yard line, Mitchum finished a seven-play series with a 4-yard scoring run up the middle.

The Tigers keyed on Princeton junior running back Oscar Espinoza, who scored 20 total touchdowns last year but finished this game with just 52 yards rushing on 12 carries, all in the first half, as well as all three receptions of Lucas Hubbard's complete passes for 65 yards.

"I think we still felt like we could still get some yards in the middle, but we started getting pushed inside of the 5, and some field position issues, and kind of went away from that," Princeton coach Bryan Lex said. "We're at our best when we can get 2, 3, 4 yards, get a nice, long, sustained scoring drive, which we did the first couple of opening ones, and then we started to kind of get out of that, and had a few personnel issues, which, depth-wise, after that first group, we fall off."

Hubbard added 51 yards rushing on 10 carries, and went 3 for 8 passing with the two interceptions.

"I thought we kind of ran out of gas, because we weren't used to the heat," Hubbard said. "They're a really good team."

After Taylor's meandering 70-yard scoring run on the Tigers' first offensive snap of the game, Princeton went three-and-out and Palmer's 24-yard punt return helped set up Dayton Pepperdine's tying 6-yard scoring run late in the first quarter.

Taylor took Angel's punt on the first play of the second quarter 70 yards for a go-ahead TD.

Palmer ran a deep crossing pattern and Taylor hit him in stride with a tight spiral for the 48-yard scoring pass that made it 26-12 including Taylor's 2-point conversion pass to Palmer.

On Princeton's ensuing first-down play, Adams picked off Hubbard just past midfield and ran it back the distance for his 53-yard TD.

Dunsmuir opened the second half with an eight-play drive keyed by Taylor's 34-yard scramble on a fourth-and-11 play, and highlighted by Pepperdine's 12-yard scoring run up the middle. Pepperdine, who ran for 79 yards on 12 carries, also scored the 2-point conversion as the holder on a fake kick that he ran in to put the Tigers ahead 40-12.

Lex liked his team's defense except for the big plays.

"That comes down to when we're against a read-option like that and a lot of misdirection, early in the season they're still biting on a lot of play fakes and getting out of position and trying to fly to the ball, rather than maintaining responsibility," Lex said. "Then you throw in bad tackling technique and trying to arm-tackle high, it's not a good mixture."

Jacob Mitchell finished the scoring for the Tigers with a 32-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter, and Treyce Ashcraft converted the 2-point run.